A background to Working Titles

1. WORKING TITLES

2. A HISTORY…
Working Titles, successful British production company, was founded by Tim Bevan and
Sarah Radclyffe in 1983, and, by 1992 they had found a corporate backer: Polygram,
this partnership introduced a man named Eric Fellner to join the Working Titles family.
Before this collaboration, Fellner and Bevan were struggling , independent producers.
Fellner described their films to have been, “suffering because there was no real
structure, and our companies were always virtually bankrupt.”
From here, Working Titles produced a handful of films for PolyGram Filmed Entertainment.
Eventually, the popularity of films made by Working Tiles, and it’s collaboration with
PolyGram, grew closer to becoming Hollywood contenders. This is where Universal
stepped in.
Noticing the amount of money that Working Titles’ was making through films like ‘Four
Weddings and a Funeral’, Universal decided to propose a partnership between their
companies. This ended with Universal being Working Title’s ‘parent’ company, running
the productions through vertical integration.

3. UNIVERSAL’S IMPACT
The collaboration with Universal caused Working Title’s profits to soar.
Universal’s input meant that Working Title’s films were adapted to cater for an American
audience, therefore being distributed across the States and making much more money
than previous productions.
The way Universal achieved this wider audience net was by injecting aspects of America
into typically British films. This is evident in productions like, ‘Notting Hill’ with the
addition of “90s America's most desirable woman”: Julia Roberts. Furthermore, in
‘Love Actually’ the film’s story is taken over to America with Kris Marshall’s character
who hopes he will have more luck with American women and this experiences with
British. Even more prominently, American Hollywood actor, Billy Bob Thornton, is tied
into the film as the US president. These elements of America, which are sewn into the
typically Brit plotlines, work effectively to entice the US market and therefore make
distribution across America much smoother.
The Impact of these distribution techniques can be seen in the financial figures of Working
Title’s films before and after their collaboration with Universal. One of Working Title’s
first films, ‘Wish You Were Here’, which was produced with Channel Four Films, only
brought in a domestic gross of $3 million , however, after the collaboration with
Universal, the typical domestic gross for a Working Titles film was around $60 million.

4. KEY PLAYERS
During the booming days of Working Titles’ ‘top-of-the-box-office’ rom-
coms, one major key player was director and producer Richard
Curtis. Curtis was the man behind Working Title’s films ‘Four
Weddings’, ‘Notting Hill’, ‘Bridget Jones’ and, his most recent work
with Working Titles, ‘About Time’. These were the films which gave
Working Titles their reputation of appealing to a mainly female,
white, middle class audience.
With Curtis came other key players, Hugh Grant, Rowan Atkinson, Collin
Firth and Bill Nighy. These are the reoccurring actors which appear in
Working Titles films, creating a loyal audience fanbase to ensure the
films made with WT can be certain they will break even. This also
allows the films to be funded a larger budget as they are confident
that the films will be successful.

5. DIFFERENCES IN UK AND US DISTRIBUTION
In order for these films, made by Working Titles, to appeal to both a British and American audience,
certain aspects of distribution are modified depending on which country the distributers are promoting
in. For example, the film poster for Love Actually that was released in the UK plays on the typical and
recognisable British cast which is in the film: showing actors like Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy and Martine
McCutcheon on the cover. However, some of these actors are famous purely from English TV, and
therefore would not be recognised by American audiences. In this case, the film poster that was released
in America used pictures which gave more away from the storyline, rather than playing on the actor’s
fame.
Another example of this would be the promotional poster for ‘Pride’ - a film distributed by Pathé. The UK’s
poster could be seen with a banner flying in the background saying, ‘Lesbians & Gays’, however, in the
US’ poster, this banner was removed. This could have been for two reasons. Firstly it can be argued that
this detail was removed so that American audiences could see more of Westminster and Big Ben -
recognisable landmarks to show off the Britishness of the film. On the other hand, it can be argued that
this may have been taken out due to America’s differing society - especially because the US has only
legalized gay-marriage in all 50 states by June 2015, and this film was released in September 2014, the
bold statement of these words being paraded could upset some audiences with a more ‘old-fashioned’
outlook on equality, hereby putting shops off of the selling of this DVD due to audience reactions.

6. DIFFERENCES IN UK AND US DISTRIBUTION
In order for these films, made by Working Titles, to appeal to both a British and American audience,
certain aspects of distribution are modified depending on which country the distributers are promoting
in. For example, the film poster for Love Actually that was released in the UK plays on the typical and
recognisable British cast which is in the film: showing actors like Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy and Martine
McCutcheon on the cover. However, some of these actors are famous purely from English TV, and
therefore would not be recognised by American audiences. In this case, the film poster that was released
in America used pictures which gave more away from the storyline, rather than playing on the actor’s
fame.
Another example of this would be the promotional poster for ‘Pride’ - a film distributed by Pathé. The UK’s
poster could be seen with a banner flying in the background saying, ‘Lesbians & Gays’, however, in the
US’ poster, this banner was removed. This could have been for two reasons. Firstly it can be argued that
this detail was removed so that American audiences could see more of Westminster and Big Ben -
recognisable landmarks to show off the Britishness of the film. On the other hand, it can be argued that
this may have been taken out due to America’s differing society - especially because the US has only
legalized gay-marriage in all 50 states by June 2015, and this film was released in September 2014, the
bold statement of these words being paraded could upset some audiences with a more ‘old-fashioned’
outlook on equality, hereby putting shops off of the selling of this DVD due to audience reactions.